Week 39

Last P-day we called up a few of the young men in the ward and hit up a soccer field made of sand to play some futebol. I came away from that experience realizing that I knew nothing about soccer compared to 8 year old Brazilians! While we were playing some neighborhood kids stopped what they were doing and joined us. Something I love about the culture here is that soccer is the second language of the country after Portuguese. The cities here are dotted with these sand fields with grass fields as well and whenever anyone shows up with a soccer ball everyone that lives nearby drops whatever they´re doing and comes to join. It doesn´t matter who you are, how old you are, or how well you play, if you like soccer you join. After playing for a few hours I also realized that I´m super out of shape. We talked with the people that had played with us and visited them later in the week.

A few of the people that played with us:

On Wednesday I celebrated 9 months serving! For 4 days straight beginning on Tuesday, it rained non-stop. Needless to say, our clothes hanging out on the lines ended up getting wetter than they were in the washer. Saturday we were saddened to hear of the passing away of Elder L. Tom Perry. Also on Saturday we traveled to Sapucaia to interview a man for baptism that my trainer, Élder Nielson, had taught and prepared for baptism. He was a middle aged man, disabled because of a work accident, and had been keeping all of the commandments for a month already.

We had marked Jenifer´s baptism for this Sunday but it fell through due to opposition from her boyfriend. He is a batuqueiro (messes with black magic and spirits) and threatened her family if she got baptized. On Sunday we attended a baptismal service that the sisters in São Leopoldo had arrainged. They helped a family of 3 be baptized and right after the service they received home and visiting teachers from the ward. It was one of the more spiritual baptismal services that I had been to.